Journal Labels

 I'm just popping by to share my journal labels that I'm using this year.

You can download these labels for free here.

Easter Centers

Are you wondering what to do with all those things you couldn't resist buying at the Target Dollar Spot or Dollar Tree? I got creative and made some Easter centers for my preschooler to complete at home!

In the carrot Easter eggs, I placed different combinations of mini erasers (Anyone else collect those too?!) for little man to sort and count.

The bunny pictured above was an Easter place setting for markers, or utensils, at the dinner table. I had these fabric carrots already from last year, so I decided to use them to "feed" the Easter bunny. There's a different number on each carrot card and little man places that amount of carrots into the pocket.

If you're looking for anything like this for your own little one, you can grab the printables I made here.

Preschool Letter and Number Tracing

I created these tracing practice pages as a way for my preschooler to practice writing his letters and numbers.

We used Play-Doh to "trace" the big letter. You can also trace it with any writing utensil or just color it. 

 I placed ours in a write on/wipe off pocket so I could reuse it throughout the week. You can use a clear plastic page protector if you don't have one of these pockets.

You can find the pockets I use here.

We used bee erasers from the Target Dollar Spot to fill in our ten frame. Another way to represent the number is by using Play-Doh or coloring it in to show the number.

These printable worksheets can be found for free in my TPT shop!

You can find the letter tracing printable pages here. It includes letters A-Z.

You can find the number tracing printable pages here. It includes numbers 1-20.

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St. Patrick's Day Goodies

It's almost St. Patrick's Day and I'm so excited because it's one of my favorite holidays! Who am I kidding? I love all the holidays!! I wanted to share the new gift tags I whipped up this week to use when making small little gifts for teachers and students.

Lucky Charms filled treat bags!

Who doesn't love water colors?!

This was last year's teacher gift! Twizzlers and Rolos!

Trix cereal in a snack sized bag!

You can snag all of these tags here in my store!

If you need a last minute St. Patrick's Day idea, this tear art craft is a freebie in my store. You can find it here.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Valentine Book Recommendation Exchange

Looking for an alternative to regular Valentine exchanges? I created this resource to be just that! Students write about what type of books they like to read. Then, other students make recommendations based on the type of books their peers are looking for. 

I plan on having my students write about the type of book they would like to read. Then, they will leave it at their seat, so their classmates can read about what kind of book they are looking for. If someone has a recommendation, they will write the book title on the "cupid's recommendation" paper and leave it at that person's seat. Kind of like a Valentine exchange! 

You can grab this resource for free in my TPT store!

Feel free to pin any of the images or the image below!

Weekly Update

Wow, it's been a crazy, but amazing, first week back at school. I'm sharing a few snaps today of what I've been up to...

Since I'm only teaching ELA this year, I have two groups of kiddos each day. My teaching partner and I color code everything to make it easier on ourselves and the kids. My homeroom is blue and his is green. By using the two colors, the kids know where they should turn things in, keep their supplies,  know which journals are theirs, etc...

Speaking of organization... I've been busying labeling all.the.things. You can find my travel themed editable labels and toolbox labels on TPT.

I made these treat tags to attach to a baggie of gum for Sneak-a-Peek. You can find these for free here.

If this was your first week back too, I hope you had a fabulous week! If you're starting back soon, enjoy the last bit of summer!

Guided Reading Lesson Planning

Today I wanted to share how I organized my lesson plans and student observations in my Guided Reading binder last school year. 

First off, I used a 1-inch binder with tabbed dividers to keep everything organized and in one place. My dividers were numbered 1-24. These numbers represented the number of kiddos in my class (At the beginning of the year each student is assigned a number). 

At the front of the binder, I placed my lesson plans for each group in a clear plastic protector. I used sticky notes to write my plans on and attached those to the plastic protector to cover up each of the boxes shown above. For my plans, I wrote the title of the book, a quick description of the book, important vocabulary that I wanted to introduce to my kids, the skills I wanted to focus on, and guiding questions that I wanted to make sure to ask my kids as they read. At the top, I wrote in the date and group name using a dry erase marker.

The page pictured above was placed on the back side of my lesson plans. Here I wrote student observations on sticky notes and placed them in each box. I also used this page to record student observations for different subject areas as well. That's why there is a box to write the subject. After meeting that week with my group, I would move the sticky notes to another page (same page, different copy) behind the student's number. That way I could keep records of what we worked on each week. 

A few things I wanted to point out... 1. I spread out these lessons over the course of a week. On average, I would meet with each group twice a week. That's why there are so many skills listed. 2. The vocabulary are words that are essential for kids to know in order to understand the text. I would do a quick introduction to each word on day one when I first introduced the book. As I checked in on students throughout the week, we would revisit the words as needed. 

This is the student observations page that I copied on the back of the lesson plan. As you can see, I wrote the student number at the top so I would know what notes belonged to which student. I typically had 4-6 kids in a group. 

This is a second copy of the same page from above, but I have placed this copy behind each student's tabbed divider. Here are two weeks of observations on this particular student. 

I hope this helps you keep your Guided Reading Binder a little more organized next year! If you have any questions, leave them below. As a thank you for reading, you can grab a copy of these pages on TPT for free here! 

Weekly Update

Happy Saturday friends! Just popping in to share a few snaps from my week on Insta! 

This week's science focus was on the life cycle of a chicken! We learned all about oviparous animals, what the inside of an egg looks like, a chicken's life cycle, and even had our very own chicks hatch! You can grab this flip book in my life cycle of a chicken TPT product. 

We've also been celebrating a different student everyday! We draw a name out of a bag (the names are written on the back of the little pieces of paper pictured above) every morning and that student gets to be our line leader, our Go Noodle picker, a pencil, and a sweet note written to them from their classmates! It's the perfect way to end the school year! You can grab the "Let's Celebrate!" tags and a template for students to write their notes on for free here.

Friday was our Friendship Day. We made friendship mix (pictured above) and signed yearbooks. We also completed an end of the year memory book. You can grab my Friendship Day packet on TPT.

Last, but not least, my kiddos wrote the sweetest Mother's Day books for their moms this week! You can grab the template for our A-Z book here. 

I want to wish all the sweet mommas out there a very Happy Mother's Day! Enjoy your special day!

Weekly Update

Happy Saturday! I wanted to share two freebies with you that I used these past couple of weeks during math.

This activity was used as a review for partitioning rectangles into squares. I gave each kiddo a different, even numbered, amount of seeds to plant in their rectangle "garden". They had to decide how to arrange the seeds and divide their garden into same sized squares. Then, they wrote a repeated addition number sentence to match. If you'd like this you can download it here.

We used this the week before Easter as a review of plane shapes. Students were asked to create a bunny using a combination of shapes and count how many of each shape they used in their drawing. If you don't want to have your students create a shape bunny, I also made a shape animal handout similar to the one above. You can find both of those here.

Hope you can use these in your classroom! Have a great weekend! 

Life Cycles

Spring is in full swing and that means so is our life cycle unit! Life cycles is my favorite science unit of the year! We have so much to cover, so I rely on engaging text, fun crafts, and BrainPop Jr. to help my kiddos make connections to the content!

Let's start with insects...

I begin insect week by making a KWL chart, watching BrainPop Jr. on insects, and reading Fly Guy Presents: Insects. Throughout the week, I like to read books by National Geographic Kids on different insects. The insects I focus on are butterflies, ants, and bees. I like the book about the butterfly migration because it helps explain another aspect of the Monarch butterfly life cycle. The book A Butterfly is Patient is also a great book to use when teaching about the butterfly life cycle. I plan on reading that book tomorrow since our caterpillars have all just formed their chrysalises. 

The book Puppy to Dog is a great book for teaching about the life cycle of a mammal. It is two books in one. If you start from the back of the book, you can read from kitten to cat. My Book of Life Cycles has many different life cycles included. My kids like this book because of the variety of animals mentioned. They love to compare different animal life cycles!

A life cycle unit isn't complete without a week long plant investigation! I like to read A Seed is Sleepy, A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds, From Seed to Plant, and National Geographic Kids Seed to Plant. 

I also like to keep materials consistent each week, so my students know what to expect. This helps them stay organized. For each life cycle, we complete a flip book to help us describe each stage in the life cycle. I also keep a life cycle poster hanging on our science wall for students to refer back to. You can find National Geographic Kids Frogs! here.

With our plant unit, in addition to learning about the life cycle, we also plant lima bean seeds and observe their growth. 

You can find my life cycle units in my TPT store. The unit pictured above is a freebie! If you download the life cycle of a dog, it will give you a good look at what the other units include! 

April Themes #onelittleword

The beginning of a new month is always an exciting time! A new month, for me, is a time to set new goals and try new things. I began using #onelittleword in my classroom last month (If you missed that post you can find it here.). I was blown away with the reflections and connections my students made to our weekly word. My kiddos looked forward to their word of the week and were excited every Monday to see what our new word would be. So I'm back to share what words I'll be using this month in my classroom! 

This month's themes make me happy! April makes me think of renewal and growth!

I also chose to include some words that have prefixes and suffixes because we will be focusing on those this month in reading. 

If you want to try out #onelittleword in your classroom, you can download it here. Let me know how it goes! 

Chaperone Kits

As I'm getting ready for our field trip tomorrow, I thought I'd pop in to share the chaperone kits I put together for my parents. 

I put Band-Aids, Kleenex, and peppermints in sandwich size Ziploc bags.

On the back of the Chaperone Kit label, I wrote the name of the students who will be in their group, the schedule, and my cell phone number in case of emergencies. 

If you'd like the bag labels, you can download them from here free! Do you make kits for your chaperones? If so, what do you put in them? I'd love new ideas for next year!